


He's Here

by h00ligan



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-12-07 22:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00ligan/pseuds/h00ligan
Summary: Klaus' power was that he could see the dead.Why didn't anyone believe him when he used it?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, generally, this story fits the same beats and headcanons expressed in "Detox" and "My Brother's Keeper", but they're not required reading.
> 
> Namely, Ben's death was caused by him sneaking some of Klaus' drugs in an effort to suppress his powers but Klaus staged the death to look like a suicide, and Reginald spent months trying to trigger an expansion in Klaus' powers to resurrect or manifest Ben through... enhanced techniques.

Klaus didn't do _shame_.

Any effect it would've had went away when he was constantly lectured by his father, shamed before his siblings, before the world. He was immunized against it sober, let alone when high. Shamed, primarily during his childhood, for being gay, for being of... questionable gender, for daring to be nice to his siblings when they were raised to be so fiercely competitive.

Grief was something else for him to process.

When he was 13, when Five disappeared, he could've _sworn_ he saw him, heard him, for months, with the other ghosts. Really, he _wanted_ to see Five, so he did. He wasn't really there, and admitting it aloud before his siblings that he'd unintentionally lied about his brother's death led to a 'Boy who cried wolf' situation. When the real wolf came, nobody believed him.

Klaus couldn't skip the funeral. It was a media circus. He wasn't allowed to make the Top Three handle everything while Klaus wanted to huddle up in his bead and die, because his best friend was gone, leaving him with the people who gave a shit about their father. Gross. 

Ben's hoodie still smelled like him. Pogo gave it to him when he started preparing the body, because at least somebody in that house had empathy, and Pogo knew how close the brothers were. It was insulated, Ben was always the same type of bone-deep cold that Klaus was, except he explained it as always feeling _slimy_ and _wet_. Especially after missions. 

"A little in bad taste, don't you think?" Ben's ghost asked as Klaus zipped up the jacket, paired with black slacks and dress shoes.

"My existence is in bad taste," he replied. "Nobody ever saw you in this except family."

"This will just make things harder on them."

"_You're_ the one who stole my pills and OD'd on them, Benny. You don't get to guilt trip me."

None of their siblings mentioned the jacket, though they all met him with _looks_. Offense, grief, anger, no compassion. Nobody cared that Klaus lost a brother, too. 

* * *

Christ, Klaus hated the press.

He was the one who was most ignored. After all, Luther was strong, Diego was a crackshot, Allison was charismatic, even sans rumors, and Ben was... charming, and awkward, and shy.

He was also glad hat nobody cared about him, else his homosexuality would've been an open thing, and, well, he wasn't ready to have people talk about _that_. Wasn't ready to have people debate on his personhood just because he liked men. Usually, when they asked him something, it was strictly power related, unlike his other siblings, who had formed little cults of personality around them.

He was also drunk and high off his ass at the funeral. Not enough to ruin anything, but enough to make things _go away_. 

"Klaus, can you speak with your brother?" it was the only question he'd gotten all day, and he hated that his only use to people was as a communicator to the other side. 

He ignored the question, for hours, until the ceremony was over, and they were burying his body in the courtyard, the press gone.

"Your funeral sucks, Ben," he mumbled. 

"Yours would be worse."

"Mine would have some _fun_ eulogies, though."

"Dad paid off all your boyfriends' families to go away. I don't know if anyone would have those stories at the funeral."

He shrugged. "Still better than this borefest. I can't believe dad didn't even tell them how."

Vanya was finally allowed to emerge from the house, with press gone. "Can you really? See him?"

He nodded sadly. "He hasn't left me alone since we found the body."

"He can't see him," Luther said, angrily. "Look at him. Wearing _his_ jacket, acting like his isn't all _his _fault, getting to soak it all in."

"How is this my fault?"

"You're such a miserable piece of shit that you never told us Ben needed help."

"That's not fair. He spent just as much time with Diego."

Ben, however, was yelling at him. Ben... generally didn't yell. "Fuck you, _Space Boy_! You didn't give a shit about me unless you wanted me to sic the tentacles on people! You never listened! You're half the reason I wanted to off myself!"

"Chill, Ben," he whispered under his breath. 

"No, Klaus, because this asshole can't see me, so I can tell him what a miserable, worthless piece of shit he is as much as I want."

"He's pissed at you," Klaus settled for, quietly, trying to take his brother's hand. His gut dropped out from under him when it passed through. Right. Ben was dead. Ben was... a ghost.

"This is just like with Five again. I don't buy for a half _second_ this whole 'I can see our dead brother thing' again from you."

Klaus felt a hand again, but this time, it stayed. Diego. "You're the one ruining Ben's funeral, here." Klaus looked over at him. 

"So, you believe me?" Klaus asked when they were back in his room.

Diego didn't answer. "Dad says he wants you rested up for training tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

"So, have you ever talked to, like, JFK or something?" Klaus looked over idly at Diego. "When you're sober enough to conjure. I mean, it's honestly kinda cool."

He idly shook his head. Diego was just trying to help, be knew. It was one of those off-season weeks where it took their pooled money to cover food, and drugs would have to wait. He did have a dealer who was good with accepting favors, but... He hated seeing Diego's expression after one of those nights. "Never got far enough in my training to actively summon ghosts." God, if he had anything in his stomach for the past couple days, it would've been thrown up. Instead, the bile had been expelled long ago and he was left shivering, with a pounding headache. "Well, except one." 

"You need tea or something?"

Klaus looked up from his spot curled in fetal position on the couch. "You know exactly what I need."

"Klaus." The name was repeated, in dozens of voices and accents, the ghosts starting to manifest. It only made himself turn in further, and being in the position, in the shit lighting and the cold, made him remember the mausoleum, triggering a feedback loop of the trauma.

"Please, get me out of her, get me..." He could almost feel his ears bleeding. "Don't leave me here."

"Klaus." Ben's voice cut through the others. Focus on Ben. Focus on Ben's voice. Don't look... Don't look at that man who died in the ring. Don't look at that man who got beaten to death by mobsters with bloody marks from brass knuckles and his skull caved in from a baseball bat. He couldn't even see Diego anymore.

"What do you _want_?" He made out through gritted teeth. He closed his eyes again. No. No looking at them.

"It's setting in."

"It's been setting in for the past 16 hours!"

"Just try to focus and quiet them."

"And what makes you the expert? You said that's what Dad told you to try and it didn't work." He was being shaken.

"Klaus. Shit. Klaus! Four!" Diego was almost screaming, but when he opened his eyes, he couldn't see him. He was... Too far sunken into the other end right now, where the living would dim away until he couldn't see them.

Then, blinding light. He was being stood up, and gently slapped to make him come to. Diego was fuzzy around the edges, still, but there, if barely.

"I feel like shit, man."

"Is that Ben you were talking to?" He asked hesitantly. Klaus nodded. Diego never acknowledged Ben's presence, but his face hardened. "You have any pot left?"

"No, smoked the last of it yesterday afternoon."

"You're hallucinating again, Klaus." 

"Lovely of him to say," Ben commented dryly. 

Last ditch effort was sensory deprivation, they both knew. "Tell Al that we need a fucking raise," he mumbled. "Give me my Walkman."

The ice bath was pretty rare that it was free, but it was off season. Diego cuffed his hands in front of him and blindfolded him with something Diego probably bought at the sex shop he got the harness at.

"You gotta see a shrink for this stuff, man. I'm pretty sure that having your dead brother in your head is enough."

He only shook his head. He'd tried a therapist once, and ended up in the psych floor of the hospital. It was worse than jail. "They give you benzos for the anxiety, but bring up the ghost thing and you get detained for being a danger to yourself." Diego...

Diego still didn't believe him. He turned his head over. "Sorry, Benny," he said with a rueful smile. "Gotta make you shut up, too." He felt the headphones come on and the music start to blast.


	3. Night Terrors

Klaus’ room was apart from the rooms of everyone else, even on the opposite wing of Vanya.

Allison reckoned it must be the screaming.

Even so far away, Klaus’ screams tore through the night. Luther had learned to live with it, Vanya spent most of her time too enveloped in her own practice that Reginald had soundproofed her room for, but Diego and Ben were always there, the trio nigh inseparable. She thought it was weird, that her brothers would spend the time on Klaus, not leave him to his own devices like Vanya. At least Father recognized that Vanya wasn’t special. Klaus probably wasn’t special, either, but he trained like the rest of them.

To be honest, she didn’t particularly know why Klaus was sent on missions when, as much as she loved her brother, Klaus held them back. He was always in the back of their mind, they always worried about how he might be getting hurt at any given time. But Father seemed to believe in Klaus’ ghosts. Allison? Not so much.

The siblings were only given tantalizing bits of information about their biological mothers. Vanya’s mother was an Olympic swimmer in Moscow. Allison’s was a local theater performer. Klaus’… was a squatter in Berlin. And yet, from such humble origins, Father still indulged in Klaus’ delusions.

Allison didn’t hate Klaus, if anything, she felt rather protective of him like Ben and Diego. She would tell everyone that it wasn’t his constant misbehavior or his inability to prove his power that led her to believe he was ordinary, so much as his sickliness. Klaus was a small, wiry little thing that caught every case of the sniffles that came his way. He was paranoid, and anxious, and was it such a stretch that he saw things?

Still, the screams chilled Allison to the bone every night. The begging to empty air with tears in his eyes while he held his hands over his ears. Adults would sometimes ask if they needed help, after all, they were children in these incredibly dangerous scenarios. She always took their well-meaning patronism in stride, of course she was okay, they were okay. The adults wouldn’t understand, because they were _ordinary_.

But Klaus screaming his throat raw made her realize in a very real way why people were so concerned for them. Of course, Klaus put on a brave face outside, but at home, she really wondered why her brother shouldn’t at least get a therapist.

As always, Ben and Diego were there when she got there, letting him embrace them while they rubbed his back and shoulder. “Is he seeing ghosts?” she asked, clearing her throat while he turned away from them and launched himself into her arms.

“Allison… they touched me.” His voice broke and buried his face in her shoulder, only the curly mop visible.

“Touched you, like... inappropriately?” she asked, worried.

He shook his head. “They grabbed my arm and shoulder and legs and… they were so cold, Ally.” He looked up. “Can you rumor me?”

“I don’t know if I should-“

“Ally, just this once. I need _sleep_, Ally.” A lump formed in her throat, looking at the picture of desperation that was her brother. Usually she used small rumors to get what she wanted, but never anything like this. But Klaus’ ghosts weren’t real, she reminded herself.

Klaus either was ordinary, or he had powers that were so scary that Father didn’t let him use them on missions. She shuddered to think what could be scarier than ben. And Father would notice if Klaus couldn’t see his ghosts anymore, but she could give him this. “_I heard a rumor… that ghosts can’t touch you,_” she said, looking him in the eye to make sure it took. And then, “_I heard a rumor… that you could sleep_.” Klaus’ form went limp against hers almost immediately, and her brothers helped her tuck him in.

When she moved to tuck a stuffed unicorn into his arms, Diego stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm and a shake of his head. “Don’t touch his things. It makes him nervous.”

When they were out of the room, Allison gingerly locked the door.

“So, do you actually believe him? About the ghosts?”

“Yes.” From Ben. “No” from Diego, at the same time.

“Klaus is,” Diego paused, and exhaled. “He’s sick. Okay? The last time I remember him being remotely normal was when his jaw got wired shut running in Mom’s heels, and even then, you coddled him so much that he was always wearing your clothes and makeup.”

“Boys can wear my clothes and makeup,” she replied indignantly. “He said it makes him feel good about himself.”

“You know if Dad found out, he’d—”

“Father is an _ancient_ homophobe who decided to buy children like collectible cars and send us off to fight crime, and if the weirdest thing about Klaus was that he liked dressing a little differently, I’d love that.”

Ben spoke up. “If Dad’s pulling him away for special training as much as he does, there has to be some sort of superpower involved,” he said grimly. “It might be ghosts, it might not, but he has to be special about something. Even I don’t get that many sessions.”

“Sessions?” Allison asked, brows furrowed. “Me, Diego, and Luther haven’t had solo training with Father since… a little before Five ran away.”

“You never noticed?” he sighed. “Of course, you haven’t. You never thought it was weird that sometimes Klaus would go missing for a day at a time and he wouldn’t even show up for meals?” Well, that kind of made Allison feel like shit, that she hadn’t even noticed, or cared. “When he comes back from those, he’s messed up. Can’t talk because apparently he screamed himself hoarse. Dad’s always talking about “his potential”. I honestly hope it’s ghosts, because with how intensely he trains and how Dad talks about him, I’m almost scared of what else it could be.”

Allison never wished harder for ghosts to be real in her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Allison hated seeing Klaus in rehab. Well, the feelings were mixed, obviously. On one hand, she hated seeing her brother lapse time after time into a pattern of addiction too deep for anything to fix, but on the other, well, Klaus was in front of her. He wasn't hurt, or dead in some alley, or any other myriad things that could happen to a homeless person, let alone a gay homeless person. And another reason why she hated it, was the look he gave her, gave his food, gave the flowers, gave everything. 

"I hate this twelve-step bullshit," Klaus said, though not to her. To the air beside his bed. Things must be bad for Klaus to be talking to the ghosts, he usually tried to avoid it when he wasn't at home.

"Hey, Klaus," Allison said with a small smile, hoping to make him feel at least a little better. "I was in town, and, Diego said you were here."

Somehow, Klaus seemed genuinely shocked to see Allison, as though he hadn't seen her, but Diego said that as they got older, the delusions just got more dominating until he couldn't see the living. "I thought you set up the digs for me."

"No, I have a fund that Diego manages for family emergencies." She sat at the end of the bed. "Was this a court ordered thing or did you overdose again?" It had to be one of the two, because Klaus had never spent a voluntarily sober day in his life since, well, before Five disappeared. No matter how many times she said she worried and he just brushed it off as self-medication that everybody does. Klaus high was slow motion, airy, Klaus in withdrawal spiritually hurt to even look at. Those always sad eyes turned on her, as though to accuse her for his state.

"My sister just outed me to the whole world," Klaus said, deadpan, then sighed. "I never said it out loud in front of someone living before. My sister just outed me to the whole fucking planet and said things like-" He looked to the side again and scowled. "Easy for you to say, she had to make you look good!"

"Do you want to talk about it?" Allison held his hand, his frozen, scarred, tattooed hand, between hers, as though trying to warm him. "I know I wasn't exactly treated well by the book, either."

"I never thought it mattered that much to me, what anyone thought about me, who knew. But then she went behind my back, went behind all our backs and." He shook his head. "Gogo tried to talk me down, but he knew. He's known for years." Allison hadn't heard Klaus call him "Gogo" since the first time she saw him since he moved out, horrified that Dad had sent her to bring them home. Diego always hated that term. "She treated it, treated _me_, like I was something to be ashamed of. Not for the drugs, but because I was _sick_. Because I had _perversions_. Because I saw things and Dad only encouraged my delusions. At least you never went 'the reason I care about gay people so much is because one of my brothers is gay'!" he sighed, trying to calm himself down, taking in deep breaths. In the hospital gown, she could really see how much her brother had faded away with time, how little was left of her dear brother, her... her friend.

"You do need help, though. Klaus, this self-destruction, it's not just medication anymore."

He didn't look up.

"Klaus?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, Ally. When I'm sober, it all hurts so much. I don't know how to deal with it. I couldn't save Ben, I couldn't save Five. I couldn't save anyone, and they all insist on screaming at me. Day after day, people who want me to talk to someone halfway across the world, people who want to touch something living so bad, they..." tears welled in those big, green eyes. The eyes that nobody would dare say no to. "I need to be numb, I need it to be _off_."

"If you want to stop seeing those things, you need a _doctor_." Allison's voice shook, sighing deeply. "Klaus, I love you, I can't watch you do this."

Klaus was quiet for a long while, turned away from her. "You're just like Van and Gogo. Go away."

"Klaus, I didn't mean to-"

"Go away, Allison!" he yelled.

As she stood outside the door, she still heard Klaus talking. "No, I wasn't to harsh on her." A pause. "Well go haunt _her_, then!"


End file.
